E 7. 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0Q01b^D173 






I 




AMERICAN INDIANS 



FIRST FAMILIES OF 
THE SOUTHWEST 



Ed.ted by J. F 




THE THUNDERBIRD 
SECOND EDITION, 1920 



PUBLISHED BY FRED HARVEY 
KANSAS CITY, 
MO. 






Foreword 

Even in the days when Christopher Columbus was a hoy playing about the 
streets and docks of Genoa, there were little republics scattered through a portion 
of the America he was to discover. These peoples of the unknown country built 
many-storied houses of stone, recognized property rights, had their traditions 
and religions and chose men to make and administer laws. They elected head 
men and counsellors corresponding generally to our system of mayors and aldermen. 
Among some of them women had rights beyond the hopes of the most enthusiastic 
suffragette of our time. For the most part they had a regard for law and observed 
a code of broad morals perhaps surpassing that of the peasants of the days of 
Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The whites came in contact with these people in 1 539 and even then, it is said, 
the pottery and beautiful garments of the men and women caused much admiration 
among the Spaniards. These people grew their own cotton, wove it into 'cloth, 
dyed it and made it into garments. They had fields and irrigation works — not 
makeshift individual schemes, but reservoirs and acqueducts that served the entire 
community and operated on a communal plan. 

They traded among themselves' and with neighboring people, had their own 
religion and their priests. When it came to war the Pueblo, the dominant people, 
were found to be as able as in peace, but they went to battle only in defense. 

While their neighbors, the Navaho, were not the equal of the Pueblo in these 
steps toward civilization they were far in advance of the plains Indian of the 
country north. The first mention of the Navaho by the Spanish explorers is in 
1598 and at that time the Indians had begun their work in silver, an art brought 
to them by the Mexicans. Surprisingly, weaving came to them through the 
Pueblo, for the Pueblo were weavers long before the Navaho. Then when the 
whites introduced sheep and goats, the Indians began the weaving of wool and the 
creation of those wonderful blankets that bear their name, an art in which they 
have been without equal to this day. 



/ 



Such were the pe.» P lc of the mountain and the desert in the world that Colum- 
bus was yet to find. Their country was what we now call New Mexico, and Ari- 
zona, and today they retain the customs oi four centuries ago to a degree equalled 

by no other people, excepting the Bedouins of the Far I ;ast 

Not all ol these early Americans of the southwest were models ol ind 
citizenship and domestic dut\ There were Apaches there in those days and thej 
were as adept in the gentle art of murder then as in the 80's, when ( .n ok and Miles 
finally rounded up their last little marauding band under Geronimo. 

It's of these Americans who antedate America that this hook tells of their 
every day life, their strange worships, of the men and women and children. 



Indians Who Work and Have Never 
Asked for Aid 

"The Pueblo are picturesque anywhere and always; they are Indians who 
are neither poor nor naked; Indians who feed themselves and ask no aid of Wash- 
ington; Indians who were farmers and irrigators before tine new world was dis- 
covered." 

That was written of the Pueblo and of no other tribe in America can it be 
said. And they were hunters and warriors, too, but only when war was brought 
to them. The Cochiti tribe of the Pueblo live on the Rio Grande, about eight 
miles northeast of Domingo, N. M. Once they were a people strong enough to 
he an important factor in the Indian revolt against Spain, back in the Seventeenth 
century. Now there are hardly 300 of them left on their reservation of 24,000 
acres. 

When the Spaniards came north from Mexico on their exploration tours they 
brought with them sheep and goats. The Pueblo secured sheep from the Span- 
iards and from that time they were shepherds as well as farmers. They wove 
blankets before the Navaho knew how. Many of the ancient Pueblo were exten- 
sive agriculturists. Their small fields were irrigated from living streams or from 
storage reservoirs. 




A COCHITI CHIEF 



Laguna, a Typical Pueblo Indian 
Village 

Long before the English colonists had formed anything like organized 
government on the Atlantic coast the Pueblo Indians were living in towns under 
an elective administration. Each community chose officers corresponding to 
governor, lieutenant governor and a board of advisers. Laguna, (named from 
a large pond near by) a typical village, is one of the later settlements, dating from 
1699. It stands sixty-six miles west of Albuquerque. 

The pueblos, or villages, are generally built in terrace fashion, the upper tiers 
of the houses setting back from those next below, so that the roofs of the lower 
houses formed a sort of front yard for those above. The fire is in a pit in the floor, 
the smoke finding its way out through an opening in the roof. Corner fire places 
are also used, and with the Spaniards came modern improvements, such as doors 
and shutters. In the early days the rooms were necessarily small. Transportation 
of beams was difficult, for horses and beasts of burden were unknown to the 
Pueblo until the Spaniards brought them. Blocks of lava and sandstone were 
the materials used in construction of the houses. Often the villages were rectang- 
ular with open courts, but there was usually little fixed plan of outline. 

The Indians learned of the wheel from the Spaniards and built their own 
vehicles. The wheels of the carreta were usually made from a section of a tree 
trunk and the whole was constructed from wood, not even nails being used. The 
Laguna Pueblo have always been adepts in pottery making. 



How the Indian Women Do the Cooking 

Before the advent of the Spaniards the Indians generally used an oven con- 
sisting of an excavation in the ground, heated and then filled with food and 
covered over. By this method any poisonous foods were made harmless, the 
starchy substances becoming saccharine. For winter supplies food was prepared 
by drying and preserving. The Pueblo carried this art of pit cooking further than 
any other Indians. Three hundred years ago when the Spaniards came, they 
taught the Indians to build dome-shaped ovens of boughs and twigs plastered 
with adobe clay and those are in common use today. In all cases these ovens are 
out of doors, thus keeping the interior of the home cool and livable. Some ovens 
are twelve to fifteen feet in diameter, serving as a co-operative oven for baking 
bread for a number of families. 

The Indians, contrary to general belief, preferred cooked food. In addition 
to the meats they had vegetables in the form of maize, cactus and yucca, mesquite 
and agave. The Spaniards introduced European fruits and vegetables and every 
Pueblo village now has its gardens close by. Maize was prepared by them in 
innumerable forms. Pinole, ground parched corn, still forms a favorite dish. 
They made hominy by removing the coating of the corn with a lye made of wood 
ashes and then boiling. The Hopi also make the strange piki, or, as the 
whites call it, "paper bread." A large flat stone, the upper side ebony black and 
highly polished, is heated to a blistering degree. The mother rubs the surface 
with a paste of pounded water-melon seeds, which evidently serves the purpose 
of lard in the kitchen of the whites. Then deftly, with lightning-like rapidity, she 
applies a thin bluish batter from a bowl. It is baked in a moment and she trans- 
fers the wafer-like sheet of bread to a rush mat at her side on the floor. Soon a 
great pile of the piki is stacked up and the sheets are then made into long rolls 
and laid away for future use. The Zuni used a yeast which they made by chewing 
corn. 



I 




.$* 







Indian Women Who Command the 
Household 

No other Indian women, and few of the gentler sex among the white peoples, 
possess the rights of the Pueblo women. Many of the tribes trace the descent 
through the maternal branch of the family and among those the home is the sole 
property of the mother. And if she wills it she may dismiss her husband on the 
slightest pretext. In that event his only recourse is to leave the house at once, 
returning to the home of his parents. When the daughters marry they bring the 
son-in-law home to mother. The children are spoken of as belonging to the mother, 
and frequently remain with her in case the parents separate. Divorce is easy 
among them and they are monogamists. While the women do the housework 
and some of the lighter farm labor, the men aid in the heavier domestic duties, 
gather the fuel, make moccasins for the women, weave blankets and in fact do the 
sewing, knitting and embroidering for the family. 

With almost four centuries of contact with white civilization the habits of 
the Pueblo have not materially changed. When history found him, in 1540, he 
dwelt in houses like his own today, tilled his farms by irrigation then as now, made 
baskets and excellent semi-glazed pottery. He dressed in garments of cotton and 
buckskin and was adept in tanning, weaving and spinning. 

As a race the Pueblo is unique among the peoples of the world, enjoying two 
religions, two sets of implements as far apart as the Stone Age and the locomotive, 
two sets cf laws, two languages and two names. 





OLLA CARRIERS RETURNING FROM WELL 
ACOMA. NEW MEXICO 



"Where the Roses Grow Near the Water" 

The old city of Santa Fe in New Mexico is the center of a number of ancient 
pueblos. All of them were named ior the saints and each settlement still honors the 
patron from wh< >m it took its name. These ceremonies are of a Christian character, 
but there is a strong flavor of the weird symbolism that was with the tribes before 
the Spaniards came. 

While no one can question the beauty and fitness of the mission names, there 
is at least one instance where it is to be regretted that the old Indian appellation 
did not survive. Santa Clara, built on a terrace of the Rio Grande, twenty- 
four miles from Santa Fe, in the ancient times was known as "the Village Where 
the Roses Grow Near the Water," a name that gives a somewhat surprising indi- 
cation of the poetry hidden in the Indian. Its population is "under 300. At one 
time witchcraft had a hold so strong on these people that they almost extermi- 
nated themselves in its practices. 

The pottery work of the Santa Clara women is either red or black. They use red 
clays mixed with fine sand to prevent cracking. The red is given only one bak- 
ing, but vessels that are to be of the lustrous Santa Clara black are returned to 
the fire, which is smothered with powdered fuel. A thick smoke gives the pottery 
the black desired, and in this state it takes a high polish. 

The women wear a woolen dress to the knees, covering several skirts of cotton. 
At the waist is a long woven sash and the skin of a deer or sheep, soft and flexible, 
is wound about the leg to the knee, and fastened to the moccasin of the same ma- 
terial. Necklaces, bracelets and rings of silver are worn during ceremonies. 







V 



A Commercial Expedition in Navaho Land 

The commercial instinct is by no means lacking among the Navaho. In fact 
"swapping" has always been a popular pastime among most of the tribes, the com- 
modities exchanged ranging from beads to wives and ponies. 

The blankets made by the Navaho, as well as the silver work, were always 
sought by the other tribes. The products of the Navaho craftsmen attracted 
Indians from the far North; in other days the Shoshones came from what is now 
Wyoming and Idaho to trade beautifully tanned buckskin garments for the 
Navaho blankets and silver trinkets. Nowadays the Navaho set off in little 
groups, bringing their wares to the white traders. 

They are shrewd and businesslike, widely different from the popular idea of 
some other Indians who exchange their earthly possessions for a plug of tobacco 
and a handful of beads. 

There are many smiths among the Navaho, who forge iron, brass and silver. 
It is generally believed that they learned this art from the Spaniards. At the 
time of the Spanish conquest, however, the Mexican tribes had a knowledge of 
metal work and it is possible that the Navaho acquired it from them. The bellows 
are of goat skin; the forges of simplest construction. 



iH 





Elle of Ganado, Who Practices the Art 
Undefiled 

No Indian, man or woman, lias met and spoken to more whites than has 
Elle of Ganado. Of all the Navaho weavers she is recognized as the foremost, 
never having departed from the best in the native art, both as regards the designs 
and the natural wools and colors. Several years ago Elle of Ganado was brought 
to Albuquerque, there in the Indian Building to give practical demonstration of 
this beautiful native art. Thousands of trans-continental travellers have seen this 
woman of the Navaho at her work. 

In the illustration the vertical threads are the warp threads; the weft is in- 
serted between them. The rods across the center of the blanket are inserted among 
the threads of the warp to separate them and to facilitate the insertion of the weft 
thread. In principle the loom used today by the Navaho Elle and for centuries 
before by her ancestors resembles closely that of the ancient Egyptians. 

Among all the Navaho there is not a family that does not possess the necessary 
implements for weaving blankets. 



An American Craft Before the White Man 
Came 

Until some Pueblo women found their way into the tribe, the Navaho dressed 
in skins and mats made of coarse bark or fibre. It was centuries ago that these 
women from the neighboring people taught the Navaho to weave. Today the 
name Navaho is inseparably linked with the blankets that have come to be prized 
as among the most striking and beautiful example of native crafts in the new 
world. 

In the Indian Building at Albuquerque is the finest collection of Navaho 
blankets in existence. The crowning feature is a number of beautiful bayettas 
superior in softness of coloring and quaintness of design to the antique rugs of the 
Orient. A few distinctive types of this collection are shown here. 

The old Hopi pattern is one of the famed bayettas, taking its name from the 
bayetta cloth originally made in Barcelona and brought to America by the 
Spaniards. Later English manufacturers produced it for the Indian trade. The 
Indians would barter for the cloth, unravel it and weave it in. 

The old Navaho bayetta is another specimen meriting the name antique. 
In the middle is a slit permitting the wearer's head to come through. This form 
is known as the poncho. It is woven entirely of bayetta. 

Another bayetta specimen is the chief's blanket. It is very old and has 
softened into an exquisite rose color. 

The Acoma wedding dress was worn by the Pueblo and in several particulars 
differs from the work of the Navaho. Instead of weaving the border pattern, 
as the Navaho do, it is worked out in relief with vegetable dyed wools and bayetta. 
The designs are emblematic of clouds and rain. The background is woven of 
carefully selected black wool. 

Some of the best types of modern Navaho blankets are shown in the two 
specimens in which gray predominates. The Indians obtain the gray effect simply 
by mixing black and white. 




CHIEFS BLANKE 



The Navaho, a Shepherd With All the Desert 
for a Home 

The Navaho have no fixed place of abode and yet are one of the few Amer- 
ican Indian families growing in number. There were 7,300 of them forty years 
ago when all were prisoners. In 1890 the census showed 17,000 and in 1906 the 
Indian office roughly estimated their number at 28.500. 

The Navaho home is built of tree trunks and limbs covered with grass and 
earth, and is conical in form. The smoke goes out through an opening in the apex. 
That's the winter residence. In summer a lean-to serves between trips. One 
cause for their poor houses and consequent nomadic trait is the belief that a habi- 
tation must be destroyed once a death occurs in it. Sometimes the loss of the 
home is avoided by carrying the dying to the open and letting the end come out- 
side. When they decide to move, all that is necessary is to place any belongings 
worth taking on a travois. mount their ponies and be on their way. 

They have been shepherds and goatherds since the Spaniard's advent. Their 
principal art is blanket weaving, which they learned from Pueblo women captured 
in war, but they are also expert silversmiths. The few basket weavers among 
them are said to be descendants of Ute and Paiute girls, also captives. 



Indian Farmers Who Are Good 
Hunters, Too 

When the Spanish Explorers wandered up from Mexico in 1 540 they found, 
on the two hanks of the Taos river, the pueblo of Taos. The Taos Indians still live 
in their old town, making their living from agriculture and hunting. The name 
Pueblo, as applied to the Indians, came, of course, from the Spanish word meaning 
village. Among the natives themselves distinctive tribal names are used. 

In early times they domesticated the wild turkey and herded large flocks as 
they now herd goats and sheep. Eagles were trapped, a practice that still exists 
among these tribes, and kept captive to supply feathers for their ceremonial dress. 
The antelope, bear, deer and mountain lion also fell before the arrow of the Pueblo, 
and regular expeditions were made to the buffalo herds in the plains. They still 
have rabbit drives, the men and boys encircling a large area and gradually closing 
in. The little animals are then killed with boomerangs or with arrows and sticks. 

Fish they never eat; it is a part of their belief that the souls of the bad women 
after death pass into fish. Many Pueblo clans are also forbidden the use of certain 
animals as food, and these laws of the unclean are resularlv observed. 



A Pair of Picturesque Farm Owners From the 
Ancient Town of Taos 

When Hernando de Alvarado, an officer in Coronado's army, was touring 
New Mexico, he came upon the pueblo of Taos. Here is a description of it taken 
from one of the narratives of the expedition: "The houses are very close together 
and have five or six stories, three of them with mud walls and two or three with 
thin wooden walls. It is the most populous village of all the country; we esti- 
mated there were 15,000 persons in it." 

That was in 1 540, almost four centuries ago and while Coronado's historians 
exaggerated greatly the population, there is no question that Taos was a large and 
prosperous pueblo in those days. Today it has a population of about half a thous- 
and. The reduction in numbers was largely due to the centuries of warfare with 
whites as well as with northern Indians. 

The pueblo is located fifty-eight miles northeast of Santa Fe, New Mex- 
ico. Unlike the other Pueblo Indians, the men wear their hair in two long 
plaits, hanging at the sides. They are active agriculturists, own good lands 
and live in little single room houses on their farms in summer. After harvest 
they return to the pueblo. The old houses of the Spanish days are still in 
use, and about a portion of the village may be seen remains of the ancient 
defensive wall. 




&K,$v.i»W 



TAOS INDIANS ON SCOUTING EXPEDITION 



The Little Indians Have Their Emotions 

In its joys and momentary griefs the Indian child does not differ much from 
its pale face cousin back East or over the water. This little Pueblo girl is broken 
hearted over the loss of a striped stick of candy which, needless to say, was replaced 
before the squall fairly began. A bit of candy is a rare luxury for the Indian 
children and they love it almost above everything. The responsibilities of the 
girl children begin early; they become nursemaids to younger brothers and 
sisters before the white child has learned to dress. Meanwhile the boys are at 
play— Indian boys have rather an easy time of it. In their strict obedience and 
reverence for their parents the little Indians set a good example to other children. 
In turn their parents are very kind, rarely inflicting punishment and seldom whip- 
ping them except in certain ceremonials when the boys are initiated into the 
Katcina orders during the great Powamu ceremony. 




ARIZONA SQUALL 



The Hopi's Theory of the Origin of Man 

Until the Christians came the Hopi had no conception of one Great Spirit 
corresponding to God, although they have always been pre-eminently a religious 
people. They defied the nature powers, the Sky God and the Mother Earth— 
the one the Father and the other the Mother of the races of men. In their mythol- 
ogy the human race was not created, but was generated by the Grand Canyon. 
While the other Pueblo tribes have accepted the teachings of the missionaries to 
a more or less extent, the Hopi still adhere to their primitive beliefs and rites. 
Their religious ceremonies, in which rain and growth of crops are the underlying 
motive, are usually held in the kiva, an underground chamber. No women are 
permitted to enter the kiva except to bring food to the celebrants. Some of these 
ceremonials last nine days. Musically their religious songs possess real merit. 



A Hopi St. John 

Unconsciously the primitive people group themselves with an effect pleasing 
to the eye of the artist — "they make the picture" to a degree that deliberate 
posing can seldom reach. There is an example of this in the picture of the Hopi 
mother and the two children, a painting from a photographic study. The little 
figure with leg gracefully poised, a mystical smile illuminating his face, might well 
be a St. John by one of the old masters and "a Hopi St. John" could properly 
be the title for the illustration. But even then, these little Hopi are hardly fair 
specimens, for both boys and girls have unusually good features. 

Mishongnovi, the pueblo where this picture was made, is in northeastern 
Arizona, and its name signifies "at the place of the other which remains erect." 
It refers to two stone pillars, one of which has fallen, the sole remains of the old 
pueblo abandoned in 1680. The village that took its place now has a population 
of about 200. 




A HOPI FAMILY 



With Flutes They Pray to the Rain Gods 

Among the Hopi is the Flute society which controls the Flute ceremony 
through the chief of the Flute priesthood. The ritual is performed every year. 
The eternal cry for water underlies this worship, and their every prayer is 
to the gods of the rain clouds. The ceremony begins in August, when the springs 
are drying, and a room in the house of one of the leading members is used as a 
ceremonial chamber. An altar bears symbols of rain clouds and lightning and 
the men surround it, singing sacred traditional songs. The priests proceed to a 
distant spring where elaborate ceremonies take place around two altars and at 
the spring during the day. 

On the ninth day, a great foot race takes place in the afternoon. The men, 
stripped to the skin, start from a point far in the desert and run at their topmost 
speed towards the village; the winners are rewarded with consecrated ceremonial 
objects. These, buried in the owner's field, are to insure success in crops. The 
priests in the meantime lead a slow procession to a certain spring near the village, 
where there are more songs and impressive rituals, accompanied by the droning 
of flutes. The ceremony at an end, all proceed slowly to the village, observing 
many sacred rites as they enter. The ceremonies terminate in the ancestral home 
of the Flute society. 




)PI FLUTE BC 



Taking the Elevator in Hopi Land 

To enter a Hopi house one takes a ladder which leads to the roof of the first 
story. Then another ladder to the second story or terrace, and another to the 
third. The first story is used as a store room and the roof as a yard where the 
family may bask and sun themselves in security. 

The ladder style of architecture was, of course, a necessity in the days of tribal 
warfare. Perched on the summit of almost inaccessable mesas the Hopi houses 
were impregnable so long as the supplies in the first story held out. In this store- 
room corn was stacked up as neatly as cord wood; great earthen-ware vessels 
contained the water supply; pumpkins, dried peaches and watermelons were 
heaped up for the winter, for the Hopi have always been good farmers and fruit 
growers. The fields and orchards are on the slopes and at the foot of the mesa, as 
are the springs and as they were centuries ago. 

The second floor of a Hopi house is usually the living room, with a floor of hard 
clay, neat and clean; the walls are tinted. Niches in the walls contain vessels of 
clay for cooking purposes; from pegs in the walls and the ceiling are suspended 
clothes, children's playthings and similar objects of the household. 

The Hopi women are the house builders, and at the same time the house 
owners. Husband has the privilege of the household, just so long as he is on his 
good behavior, and wife is the sole judge. One lapse and he finds his clothes, tied 
in a neat bundle, just outside the door. 






In a Hopi Beauty Parlor 

When the little Hopi girl becomes of a marriageable age a change in coiffure 
announces it to the pueblo's society. The proud mother takes her daughter in 
hand and arranges her hair in great whorls at the sides of the head, in imitation 
of the squash blossoms. In Hopiland the squash flower is the symbol of purity. 
The pride of the mother and full satisfaction of the daughter are shown plainly in 
the illustration. On marriage the squash blossom head dress is abandoned; the 
hair of the women is then parted in the middle and hangs in two strands over the 
shoulders in front. 

The young people have good features — straight noses, high cheek bones, and 
a skin in which the reddish hue is quite marked. The hair is usually straight and 
black, but in some few instances it is wavy and brown. Strangely there are a 
number of Albinos among the Hopi. 

Industry is a tribal trait and they show great skill in weaving and dyeing 
cotton and wool and blankets, kilts and belts. They are, in fact, the tailors for 
Indians of other tribes, taking food in exchange for clothes. The black blanket 
worn by the Hopi women is an important article of commerce among other south- 
western Indians. The Hopi weave baskets, the sacred-meal plaques being, perhaps, 
the best example. Pottery is made in one of the villages. 

In their dramaturgic exhibitions they surpass all other Indians of North 
America. Masks in great variety of decoration are made from hides, dolls are 
carved and dressed, mechanical toys devised to represent birds and animals and 
all are used in entertainments and ceremonies. 



Home Sites Miles From Wood and Water 

In other clays the Hopi, centuries ago. built their homes on the tops of the 
most inaccessible mesas. It meant defense and protection for them, but it also 
meant hardship, for they were far from wood and water. To this clay they live in 
these fastnesses and the women toil up the steep mesa, carrying water from the 
springs far down in the valley. The men go miles for wood and sometimes keep 
their herds at some distance from their mountain homes. 

The squaw shown in the illustration is of the Tewa village in northeastern 
Arizona. She wears a blanket and when she affects moccasins the soles are 
made of ox-hide, with leggings of buckskin. Ear pendants are often made of small, 
thin wooden blocks, ornamented with turquoise mosaic. The maidens dress their 
hair in two whorls, in imitation of the squashbloom, their symbol of purity. The 
married women wear theirs in two plaits, one on either side of their head. The 
women tend to corpulency and age rapidly; the girls are married at 15 or 16. 
Bachelors and spinsters are rare. 

The Hopi are a kind, peaceful people— their very name signifies "peace.*' 
Theft is rare and murder unknown; in fact crime is so unusual that they seem to 
have no punishment except for sorcery. They surpass all other Indians in pottery 
work. 




X 



; 




The Indian Who Understands Rattlesnakes 

That a people should have engaged for centuries in a ceremony known as the 
snake dance, in which the celebrants not only handle poisonous serpents, but even 
take them between their teeth, naturally suggests a state of barbarism close to the 
lowest degradation. And yet the Hopi, the Indians of the snake dance, have 
been among the most peaceful of the American tribes, thrifty and industrious and 
of unusually high moral standards. 

The snake dance is held every year in some of the villages and it is in fact a 
prayer for rain. Four clays are spent in hunting snakes. As a coiled rattlesnake 
is spied, a pinch of sacred meal is cast upon the serpent, and a prayer addressed 
to it. Then the Indian waves the snake whip— a stick with two long buzzard 
feathers at the end— slowly over the reptile and as it coils he seizes it and slips it 
into a buckskin sack. The reptiles are taken to the kiva and there transferred to 
the snake jars. On the ninth day they are bathed in a basin of sacred water. 
The snakes glide about seeking escape, but the men and little boys herd them 
back with their whips. At sun-down the snakes are carried to the plaza, where 
there is singing and dancing. As one priest takes a snake in his mouth, the other 
attracts its attention with the whip of feathers. When the dance is over the 
snakes are carried to the foot of the mesa and set free. 

How is it that the priests— some of them boys— are not bitten ? There seems 
to be only one answ er— the Hopi snake priests understand rattlesnakes. Perhaps 
the reckless confidence of the Indian makes the snake think more of flight than 
fight. One thing is certain, the Indians do not draw the fangs or do anything else 
to make the snakes harmless. Few Hopi priests have ever been known to suffer 
from the bite of a rattlesnake. 



A Hopi Pueblo of Other Centuries 
Reproduced 

Almost at the edge of the Grand Canyon and adjoining El Tovar hotel 
stands a Hopi village, an exact reproduction of a typical home of a hundred years 
ago. It is three stories high and is of rough stone, just as the Hopi of other 
generations built the community houses that were forts as well. 

While this is distinctively a Hopi house in design and construction it is primarily 
a museum of the Indian arts and crafts, and selected representatives of several 
tribes demonstrate their work there. The potters, the blanket weavers and the 
basket makers, men and women, may be seen here, pursuing the arts as did their 
ancestors centuries before them. 

Several rooms of the Hopi house are given over to collections of blankets, 
pottery and basketry that have been on exhibition in the international expositions. 
The result of years of search among the people of mountain, plain and desert, they 
are known and valued by students of early America the world over. 




r*f- 



Replica of a Kiva, Where the Hopi Held Sacred 
Ceremonials 

Secret societies have been in existence among the Hopi for centuries and 
they performed their rites in underground rooms, or kivas. An exact reproduction 
of the interior of one of these ceremonial chambers is maintained in the Hopi 
House, Grand Canyon. The altar shown here is that of the Powamu society. 
The god of germination is represented by the largest of the three idols, the next 
is the god of thunder and the small black figure is Pookong, the god of war. 

The banquette, or wall seat, about three sides of the room, is used by the 
assisting priests. The floor is of rough fiat stones, loosely fitted together, the 
interstices occupied by smaller stones. On the walls are symbolic drawings. 

What appears to be a rug in the foreground is in reality a sand painting or 
mosaic. The mosaics of no two ceremonies are alike. In preparing them the 
Indian first sprinkles brown sand on the floor. Over this various colors of sand 
are laid, trickling through the thumb and forefinger. Usually the squash blossom, 
emblem of fertility and purity, and rain clouds in black appear in the decorations. 
The Hopi are an agricultural people living in a dry land and in their symbols and 
ceremonies reference to rain is usually present. 




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Where Woman is the Perpetuator of the Arts 

The Indian woman was not only the originator of the arts among the native 
Americans, hut she has been the zealous perpetuator as well. Let it be basketry, 
pottery or, in some tribes, weaving, the skill is with the women. 

Far over in northeastern Arizona is a little Hopi village ot lewer than 200 
inhabitants, seldom visited by the whites. It would be little known except for 
one household, whose fame is clue wholly to Nampeyo — Nampeyo of the village of 
Tewa. Every student of Indian ceramics knows of Nampeyo, for she is foremost 
among the Indians of today in the perpetuation of this art. It is probably safe to 
sav that the beautiful polychrome vases of this woman and her family are the 
most artistic among Indian products. 

In making pottery the Indian uses neither measure, model nor potter's wheel. 
All is done from memory and with the hands. A few tools, hardly more than sticks 
and brushes made from yucca leaves, are the instruments. In the uses of materials, 
the clays and pigments, the methods are as complex as the tools are simple. The 
Indians go miles for clay that will burn a certain shade and the colors, almost im- 
pervious to acids, are made of stonelike substances ground to dust in mortars and 
made liquid. The decorations are often strongly symbolic, for there are few- 
peoples possessing the sense of the mystic more than the Hopi. In form the 
articles of pottery range front spoons or ladles to cups, water vessels and elaborately 
decorated vases. 







NAMPEYO DECORATING FOTTERY 



Never Were Two Pieces of Indian Pottery 
Exactly Alike 

The culture center of the early Americans was in the Pueblo region of the 
Southwest. These people as aborigines expressed their art sense in pottery. 
Today the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona practice the art in its abor- 
iginal form with little or no variation. For tempering purposes the clay was mixed 
with sand, pulverized stone and shells. The art was restricted almost exclusively 
to the women, a condition that holds good today. The potter's wheel was unknown 
to these people before the white men came, and even now its use is rare. The 
colors usually employed are black, white, yellow, red and brown. Geometric 
and symbolic designs are used most, with the triangle predominating; many of 
them indicate lightning, rain and clouds. Next in frequency are the figures 
derived from birds and animals, and last come the decorations suggested by leaves 
and (lowers. The sunflower appears often in the floral designs. 

The Indian potters work neither by rule nor pattern, so that while only a 
few general forms were used, no two of the vessels are the same size or form. The 
same holds good of the ornamentation. The vessels vary in size from the large 
vase, holding ten gallons or more, to the little cup or canteen of a half pint or less. 

Some of the work, such as the black Santa Clara specimen, is lustrous and at 
first glance would appear to be glazed. That is not the case, however, for the 
Indians never fully mastered the use of salt in the clay mixtures. The sheen on 
the Santa Clara specimen comes from careful rubbing with a polishing stone. 



The Pima, Who Caii Themselves 
"The People" 

The name "Pima" means "no" and the tribe received its negative appellation 
through a misunderstanding of the missionaries. These Indians themselves con- 
fidently use a tribal name signifying "The People." They are probably of Aztec 
origin and centuries ago they built houses of adobe, strong and substantial, but 
some of their Eastern neighbors, notably the ever warlike Apaches, raided their 
well established villages and drove them to dome shaped lodges of pliable poles, 
covered with thatch and mud. And in these they have lived ever since under 
conditions almost identical with those of four centuries ago. 

The hooting of an owl brings fear to a Pima. He believes that it is a sign of 
death— that the owl is the messenger carrying the soul from the dying to another 
world. They never consider marriage binding, husband and wife separating at 
will and marrying again at will. The women do all the heavy work, except hunt- 
ing, plowing and sewing; when the family moves the husband usually rides and the 
wife walks, carrying a papoose or even a part of the grain she herself has harvested. 
The grain is threshed by the stamping of horses and winnowed by the women, who 
skillfully toss it from flat baskets. Wheat is now their staple crop and in good 
years they sell some to the whites. On reaching market the husband sometimes 
has no compunctions about trading the crop and handiwork of the women for 
articles for his own personal adornment. The Pima took no scalps. They con- 
sidered the Apaches as possessed of evil spirits and would not touch them after death. 



The Pima Women, Who Make Baskets 

In basketry the Indian woman has left the best witness of what she could do 
in handiwork and expression. Originally the baskets were wholly without decor- 
ation, and so crude as not to entitle them to consideration. They were used to 
carry corn, melons, and peppers and the smaller ones were used for holding beans, 
shelled corn and other coarse materials. 

The decorative appeared in the work centuries ago, the ancient ruins giving 
up specimens of delicate weave embellished with geometric and symbolic designs. 
Figures of human beings, animals and leaves as well were woven in and today the 
same designs are followed in the better work. The Pima and Apache originally 
used geometric figures in their designs, but of later years the Apache in particular 
have combined these with human and animal figures. In weave, material and 
coloring the work of the Pima and of the White Mountain Apache is almost 
identical. 

In making the basket the Pima woman uses the fibre of the yucca. Wrapping 
this fibre with the same material she forms a fine rope, or thread. The weaving 
begins at the center or bottom of the plaque, bowl or jug that is to be evoked. 
The body is usually yellow, highly ornamented in black or white. In many cases 
they are water-tight. 

The Pima now living in the valleys of the Gila and Salt rivers in Arizona 
came from northeastern Mexico. The rums of large irrigation and defensive 
works built by them centuries ago are still to be seen. There are almost 4.000 
men. women and children in the tribe. 




PIMA INDIAN BASKET MAKER 



An Apache Grand Dame Weaving a Supply 
Basket 

It is stretching the imagination to connect this peaceful scene of household 
industry with the word Apache, for that name has come to mean everything cruel 
and bloodthirsty to the last degree. Where one or two groups honestly and con- 
scientiously earned their reputation for murderous cunning, the tribe as a whole 
has been greatly maligned. 

The old mother peacefully, contentedly weaving herself into a basket is an 
Apache, every drop of her blood, as much as Victorio or Geronimo when they were 
murdering settlers and baffling the United States government. Yet, with all the 
evidence of her domesticity, this Apache matron is by no means a paragon. For 
one thing she is a gambler to the marrow — gambling is a national pastime among 
the Apache men and women. They have games with sticks that are thrown into 
a circle, counting according to whether the round or Mat side falls upward. They 
use Spanish cards, and full decks made of horsehide and marked with great care 
are not unusual. 

All of the Apache women make baskets, some of them water-tight to be used 
as jugs. The one grandmother is weaving about herself is to be used as a store for 
grains and vegetables. 



Basketry Still a Living Art Among Certain 
of the Indians 

Relatively few tribes of American Indians understood pottery, except in the 
crudest form. As for basketry, it may be said that every Indian from the land 
of the Esquimaux down through Mexico was a basket weaver. True, to many 
it meant little more than plaiting a grain receptacle of coarse willows, or for a cradle, 
or even to be used as shelter and clothing. 

Contrast this purely utilitarian basketry with the delicate weave of the Porno 
Indians — 500 stitches to the square inch. Then there is the work of the Tulare 
people, who weave yarn in with the vegetable fibre. Xavaho wedding plaque 
is an interesting piece of basketry, used in the Navaho marriage ceremony, but, 
strangely enough, mack by the Paiute Indian. Other tribes known chiefly for their 
fibre-weaving are the Inyo, the Chimehuevi, the Mission and the Hupa. 

I he Apaches, whom we think of usually as warriors, are adepts in basket 
making and of the three great divisions of this people — Jicarillo, Mescalero and 
White Mountain — each shows distinctive characteristics in the art. Some of the 
Apaches weave the fibre braids so closely that the basket becomes water-tight 
without further preparation. Ordinarily the baskets are made water-tight by 
application of pinon pitch inside and out. 

For decorative purposes in basketry the Indians use their own native dyes, 
as well as feathers, beads and bone. 



The Apache, Whose Name Signifies 
"Enemy"' 

"For centuries which no pen has recorded, the Apache has been the most 
notable and the least noted of warriors. He has been the scourge of a territory 
greater than Europe minus Russia. ****** jf Leonidas had been 
an Apache he would have killed off the Persian myrmidons, a handful at a time, 
without once being seen by them." 

The Apache whose very name signifies "Enemy" made war his work and his 
pastime from the time the white man first heard of him until Crook and Miles 
gathered in the last of the fighting Enemies and led them away prisoners. 

Physically the Apache was leather. Walls and doors were unknown to them 
He was born out of doors, practically reared out of doors and, as a rule, died out of 
doors. And the woman of the Apache asked no odds when it came to meeting 
hardship. She followed her lord in his fights and in his flights on the hardest of 
marches, over desert and mountain crag. 

When the chase grew hot the Apache warrior's baggage was restricted to a 
breech clout, his weapons and all the cartridges he could belt about his body. In 
a desert that would not give subsistence to a goat the Apache found food enough 
to fight on. The shunned mescal gave him a nutritious bread, an intoxicant and 
even thread. In his last fighting days he carried the best of rifles and better field 
glasses than those of the officers trying to find him. 

Today you'll find Apaches at work on the farm or with a construction gang, 
helping to reclaim the desert in which they for years challenged the power of 60 
million people. And those fierce, tireless women and their daughters — can you 
see them patiently, painstakingly making dyes and weaving strangely figured 
baskets ? 







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The Problem of Existence as Met by 
a Desert People 

Were all the rest of America laid waste Hopiland and its people could go on 
li\ ing with very little change in their daily routine. They can grow everything 
they eat and can make everything they wear. When one considers the obstacles 
overcome clay after clay by these Indians of the desert the feeling for them can be 
one of nothing less than admiration. They had to build their homes on mountain 
tops for protection against marauders. Their fields, at times miles away and poor 
enough in themselves, gave forth very scanty crops unless water was led to them. 
The quest for fuel meant a journey far from the little fortress of a home on the 
mesa. The illustration shows one of these fuel trains homeward bound. The 
burros are laden with bits of cedar and pinon, gathered miles away. Notice the 
sturdy, businesslike stride of the man in white — it is one not popularly associated 
with the Indian. In the distance, on the very top of the mountain, the angular 
outlines of the village appear. Shortly the sure-footed little burros will be clamber- 
ing up the steep path and the women and children will stack the wood away to be 
used in the ovens and fireplaces in the cold days. Gathering wood is one of the 
main occupations of the Hopi between the time of planting and harvesting. 




INDIAN WOOD TRAIN ON THE ARIZONA DESERT 



Their Name Came From a King of France 

Back in 1 7^8 the Franciscan fathers established a mission in what is now San 
Diego County, California, and named it the Mission San Luis Rey cle Francia, for 
Saint Louis, King of France. Great numbers of peaceful Indians lived nearby 
and on the day of the founding fifty-four natives were baptized. The Indians 
were willing to work and within a few years they aided in the erection of a group of 
mission buildings and by 1820 they had thousands of head of cattle and great 
cultivated farms. At its highest prosperity, in 1825, the mission had almost 
3,000 Indian believers. The lands gradually passed into secular control and the 
Mexican governor sold the last of the mission buildings and acres in 184b for less 
than $3,000. When the Americans under Fremont took California the title to the 
mission church and immediate grounds was declared to be in the Catholic church, 
which has since repaired the sanctuary and re-dedicated it. At one time it was 
the greatest mission in California. 

The Indians of the Mission San Luis Rey now number about a thousand and 
many of them have formed other villages in the vicinity. 




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The Supai, Who Live in Grand Canyon 

In the great kaleidoscopic chasm feebly termed "The Grand Canyon." in a 
setting of ever changing blues and golds and purples, live the Havasupai. a small 
tribe of Yuman stock and commonly known as the Supai. Their homes are of 
twigs and poles covered with earth. In the days of buckskin their leather work 
was of merit, but it was lost with the introduction of clothes from the white man's 
mills. 

They are sufficiently versed in agriculture to grow corn, melons and products 
on which they subsist in summer. In the winter, game from the surrounding 
mountains keeps them in food. There are about 150 of the Supai left in their 
highly colored little valley and they have been steadily declining in numbers. 

Basket making is the art of the women of the Supai. In other days the 
Supai were extravagantly addicted to the use of cosmetics. Both men and women 
covered their faces with smooth coatings of reel ocher or a blue paint made from 
the wild indigo plant. These decorations were not the war paint customary among 
other tribes, but were worn as an every day ornament. 

They knew little about pottery, but met the situation by making baskets, 
coating them with clay and using them as cooking utensils. All basket making 
Indians know the time and season for digging the plants, how to dry, pre- 
pare and preserve the tough and pliable parts for use and to reject the brittle. 
They have knowledge of dyes, and for tools they use their nimble fingers and sharp 
stones, a bone awl and a shell for polishing. In these days, scissors, knives and steel 
awls have been added. The largest basket made by them is for burden purposes 
and the squaws often use them as papoose carriers. Another is in the shape of a 
bowl and a third is a bottle, made water-proof by means of pinon pitch. 










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SUPAI CORNFIELD 
iR ACT CANYON. ARIZONA 



The Story of the Thunder Bird 

(Illustrated on Title Page^ 

In the mythology of all the Indians of North America birds play a most 
prominent part, and of them all the Thunder Bird is the most frequently en- 
countered. Growing out of the effort of primitive man to account for the natural 
phenomena surrounding him. the myth of the Thunder Bird varies as to detail 
with almost every tribe, but with most of them it is held responsible for the light- 
ning and thunder; and with some for the rain. The species varies with the dif- 
ferent tribes. With some it is shaped as an eagle, with others as a hawk, with 
others as a grouse, and with still others as a mighty monster of unknown form. 

The wide extent of this myth is shown by the fact that the Thunder Bird 
figures prominently in the mythology of the Eskimo, the Northwest Indians, the 
Navaho. the Plains Indians, and the Pueblo peoples. 

The plains tribes consider the thunder storm due to a conflict between the 
Thunder Bird and a giant rattle snake. With other Indians it is pictured as a 
mighty bird dwelling in the mountains with kindred spirits and sallying forth at 
intervals to cause the lightning by the opening and closing of its eyes, the thunder 
by the beating of its all-enveloping wings, while the rain falls from a lake carried 
on its back. 

With the primitive people of the arid Southwest water is the most precious 
of all elements. The Southwestern Indian depends chiefly upon his crops and his 
flocks and herds for livelihood. Particularly is this true of the Pueblo peoples. 
To these Indians the coming of the Thunder Bird means rich grass for their flocks 
and herds, abundant crops, full granaries, and so the Bird is a deity embodying 
all things beneficent and kind; its presence a constant augury of peace and happi- 
ness; its painted image on the rocks and in the estufas an enduring talisman of 
good fortune. 

On the cliffs over-shadowing the ancient ruins of one of the pueblos in New 
Mexico is a picture of the Thunder Bird. It is about ten feet square, in black and 
white on red sand stone. The mineral paints used by the pre-historic artists have 
remained bright and clear and today that figure on the red cliff is accepted as the 
conventional design of this universal Indian Deity. 

R C 1 0. S 




SUPAI INDI 



